Ah, the good old days of politics

When people nowadays want to impress everyone and make themselves sound reasonable and honorable by complaining about the rancorous mood of the electorate and the politicians for whom they vote, they often try to use the olden days of politics as their example:

"Why can't we have election campaigns like those around the time of our country's founding, when the eloquent men who founded this country were running for office?" Oh, they may have been eloquent in their writings, but on the campaign trail? No, no, they played for keeps. Watch this video where modern political ad techniques are married with actual quotes from politicians of the past, where they are speaking about their opponents:



If only today's mealy-mouthed milquetoasts were as candid.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson